In turn the Town Pants goblin has been seen on our t-shirts and most recent album as Red, Green, Blue, and even in Tartan colours in the past.

The image to us was more in context with the myth and legend of the "Trickster-poet" in common mythology, (and owes far more to the books of Tolkein (re: The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series) to any description of the Devil in the bible. He is not a "Great red dragon": Rev 12:3 or "Serpent": (Rev 12:9; 20:2; 2 Cor 11:3) or a "Murderer": (Jn 8:44) - He is merely a Gremlin hiding in a shamrock and has more connection with Rumplestilskin than the Devil...!.

The Town Pants hobgoblin comes as a character from folklore and is an example of a archetype and found in literature and folklore. The playful trickster-poet breaks the rules often taking the form of tricks. Tricksters can be cunning or foolish or both; they are often very funny. In many cultures from Greek, Norse, or Slavic folk-tales along with first nations lore, the playful trickster takes a goblin like form and is not a misanthropic devil at all. To illustrate:

Promethus in Greek Mythology stole fire from the gods to give to humans. In many native American and first nations mythologies, the Coyote in the southwestern US or the Raven from our pacific northwest and coastal British Columbia home base also stole fire a la Prometheus.

In later folklore, the playful trickster is often incarnated as a clever, mischievous man or creature, who tries to survive the dangers and challenges of the world using trickery and deceit as a defense. I mentioned Rumplestilskin before, but further many typical fairy tales have the King who wants to find the best groom for his daughter by ordering several trials. No brave and valiant prince or knight manages to win them, until a poor and simple peasant comes. With the help of his wits and cleverness, instead of fighting, he evades or fools monsters and villains and dangers with unorthodox manners, and the moral of the story is that the most unlikely candidate passes the trials and receives the reward. More modern and obvious examples of that type are Bugs Bunny, The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) or if you want to go even further with it, Bart Simpson from The Simpsons cartoons.
The logo character also shares some commonality to the "Man/Gremlin in the Iron Mask" figure that graced the cover of our Piston Baroque album. His wide gregarious smile surely does not give off any notions of moral darkness does it?

The goblin drawing itself was done by the Wallace Brothers, some talented illustrators in New York state who kindly drew a number of different samples of that artwork and who's work has appeared before commercially. The inspiration for some of the makeup of that design came from some of the books that I had read while in University, which I believe they are familiar with too... Namely, "Early Irish Myths and Saga's" which I'd heartily recommend as great Celtic folklore reading which explains some of these characters in the context of celtic culture a bit more.
We are concerned and distressed that you would perceive the logo as such. Any questions we've had about the logo before have been easily explained to others by explaining the cultural and historical context as mentioned above. It is disturbing that somebody might confuse the image of a goblin hiding in a shamrock as any sort of occult symbolism or beliefs, but your note certainly merited proper explanation and I hope I have done so here.

Thank you for the posting and we hope our explanation has assuaged your fears and concerns. If we're back in town next year, we hope that you'll attend the show, and enjoy the music, and perhaps we might have a chance to talk in person.

Sincerely, Aaron Chapman